A Revolutionary New Type of Lens Focuses All The Colours of The Rainbow Into a Single Point

A brand new type of lens called a metalens has just passed a major hurdle. A metalens is a flat surface that use nanostructures to focus light, and it could change optics forever by replacing the traditional bulky, curved lenses we know.

more…

Tau.Neutrino said:

A Revolutionary New Type of Lens Focuses All The Colours of The Rainbow Into a Single Point

A brand new type of lens called a metalens has just passed a major hurdle. A metalens is a flat surface that use nanostructures to focus light, and it could change optics forever by replacing the traditional bulky, curved lenses we know.

more…

I hope that everybody is taking note of this. It’s brilliant, a complete game-changer. “The potential for metalensing is vast. From better lenses in your smartphone cameras to a whole new breed of wafer-thin virtual reality and augmented reality headsets.” I would very much like to know how it copes with wavelengths outside the visible spectrum.

I had heard that negative refractive index metamaterials could be used for making an ultra-thin achromatic lens. Really glad to know that they’ve followed through and actually built a working prototype.

How a superlens works, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superlens

In addition to being achromatic and lightweight, a superlens allows the focussing of light to see objects smaller than the wavelength of that light – beyond the diffraction limit. See also Hyperlens